Where does one even begin? I’ve been buzzing around the house taking pictures of all the appliances, for goodness sake. Maybe I’ll run an Appliance of the Week feature, but I can’t stick them all in here today.
Yesterday we took a walking tour of the neighborhood, learning where the grocery stores are, and the crappy little park, and the other physicists. That was our morning. In the afternoon we had a big double-feature adventure, driving to a nearby Buddhist shrine and then on to JOYFUL HONDA - not, as you might expect, a purveyor of happy cars, but rather a store. No, a mall. No, a CIVILIZATION unto itself.
Here’s the shrine first, though, so you really believe we’re in Japan.

There’s water trickling out of the dragon’s mouth, and you’re supposed to use the dippers to wash your hands and rinse your mouth out (maybe? We didn’t see anyone using it). Byron was so charmed by this little hut that he hurried eagerly to the next one, which turned out to be the smoking hut. We thought about persuading him that the standing ashtrays were ceremonial in some fashion, but decided we were warping him enough already.
This, in particular, creeped him out:

That’s the guardian of the gate. Byron took one look at him and said, “I’m tired. I’m really, really tired.” He probably was tired (jet lag! super evil!) but I believe what he really meant was “Holy shit that guy is scary!” Because he was:

This particular sect (which Scott is going to e-mail me the name of, because my brain is full of the holes like Swiss cheese) has strong ties to Tibetan Buddhism, and is famous for doing exorcisms, so there’s a lot of demons in their worldview. This dude’s job is to scare the evil demons. Trying not to read too much into the fact that he scared my boy…
This shrine is very off the beaten track, and doesn’t cater to tourists, which meant - bonus! - we didn’t have to pay to go in, but also we didn’t really get to go very far inside. I don’t have pictures from inside the main building, therefore, but we glimpsed a monk and smelled the incense. Here’s one of the pagodas, which were up behind the shrine.

And here’s a shot from the nearby graveyard:

Byron was very quiet and respectful both places, which has me feeling optimistic that we can take him more places like this. Then again, we also noticed yesterday that he was too exhausted to pitch a fit, so maybe we were a little bit lucky. In any case, it was fun - not as showy as the temples and monasteries we saw in Kyoto, my other time in Japan, but still very interesting.
Joyful Honda deserves its own entry! Plus, it’s time this boy and I got our day started. We have ahead of us a busy day of, uh, finding stuff to do! Watch out Japan!